Today from The Independent, via AJ:
In her coronation robes, Elizabeth I looks formidable and stately – the Virgin Queen in her pomp, an image to propel rivals into battle. Some 400 years after her portrait was painted, that is precisely what she has done.
Hers is one of more than 3,000 images from the National Portrait Gallery uploaded onto the free internet encyclopedia Wikipedia in April by Seattle-based Derrick Coetzee. The gallery, founded in 1856, responded last week by threatening legal proceedings against the PhD student.
That action unleashed outrage in cyberspace and quickly led to a stand-off between the proponents of free information and cultural institutions wanting to protect one of their few revenue streams – licence fees for reproducing images of their artworks. The row also goes to the heart of an internet revolution which does not recognise borders or national laws.
Image in question here.
Brian Sewell calls the National Gallery’s legal team fools, which seems apt.
The National Portrait Gallery has
always been managed by fools and this is another example of their folly. I’m
on Wikipedia’s side. The only thing the gallery has to preserve are the
pictures themselves. The images must, in some sense, be public property
already.
About the global pastime of suing people: Saul Bellow summed it up in Humboldt’s Gift.
Humboldt: I’ll be rich some day.
His friend: How?
Humboldt: Someone will wrong me.
More on the case here.
Brian Sewell posted:
“The National Portrait Gallery has always been managed by foolds and this is another example of their folly”
Mr Sewell clearly does not understand English law when it comes to copyright. Nor does he give any past evidence from his sweeping statement. It’s clear as crystal regarding this issue and the fact that Mr Coetzee did not ask permisson to upload the high resloution images he managed to copy onto Wikiapedia gives the NPG every right to take legal action.